Top 5 Websites to Learn SQL Online for FREE

Anyway, once you start writing queries and seeing the result, you feel that confidence needed to go to the next level, which involves downloading and installing a free copy of popular databases like MySQL, SQL Server, or Oracle in your machine.

From my experience, I can say that SQL is easy to learn but difficult to master. You can start writing SQL queries in about an hour or so, but when it comes to writing queries to solve real-time requirements or for reporting purposes, it’s not that easy.

Practicing SQL online on sites like SQLZoo or SQLFiddle will further help you to keep yourself up-to-date and keep improving your SQL skills, which is the main challenge for any SQL developer or programmer.

5 Best Resources to Learn SQL Online for FREE

Here is my collection of the top five websites, which I found good to learn and master SQL.  There are many websites, blogs, and tutorials out there on the internet but at the same time, it’s difficult to find excellent resources.

Since I have a passion to collect good resources for learning technology, I always bookmark my great discoveries. These websites are some of those.

1. Udemy

This website has the biggest collection of online courses, both free and paid. Since online courses are a great way to learn a new technology or programming language, you can also use to learn the basics of SQL and Database.

Though, finding the right course is a tough job there as well because there are literally so many courses and you are not sure which instructor is best and which course meets your requirements, so you need to watch previews, read reviews, and decide based upon that.

If you ask me, The Complete SQL Bootcamp by Josh Portilla is the best course to learn SQL. It has on average 4.5 ratings from more than 127,000 students which are really impressive. The only thing is that it’s not free but you can get it really cheap like in less than $10 on Udemy’s flash sale which happens all the time.

The course also provides certificates to indicate that you have completed the SQL training, which you can add to your resume or Linkedin profile.

As I have said, Udemy also has a lot of free courses to learn SQL and Database, and the following are my recommendations to start with.

1. Introduction to Databases and SQL Querying – 4.3 ratings from 175,000 Students
2. Advanced Databases and SQL Querying  – 4.3 rating from approx. 100,000 Students
3. Oracle SQL – A Complete Introduction – 4.5 rating from 25,000 Students
4. Microsoft SQL Server – An Introduction –  4.4 ratings from 7,000 Students

These are some really good quality free courses you can take on Udemy to learn SQL and Database fundamentals, querying, etc. 

Though you need to be careful that these courses may not remain free all the time and maybe converted into paid courses once the instructor reaches their promotional targets.

But, once you join, it will be free to you all the time. So, it’s better to join them before they become paid course and learn at the time convenient to you.

2. SQLZoo

SQLZoo is one of the best and I guess the most popular website for learning SQL online. It provides both tutorials and exercises and that’s why it is equally useful for someone just starting with SQL and programmers who know SQL but want some good practice to really master it.

The SQLZoo provides easy-to-understand tutorials and interactive examples to write queries and see results right in your browser.

You will find SQL interactive tutorials, examples, and exercises on this website. It covers most of the SQL clauses like SELECT clause to read data, CREATE to make a new database, ALTER to change the database, and DELETE to remove data and tables.

It also covers advanced concepts like GROUP BY, Indexes, Views, SQL Joins, Sub-queries, handling NULL values in SQL, etc. SQLZoo also has several SQL quizzes to test your knowledge.

In short, this site is one of the best resources to learn and master SQL online, and it’s FREE. Every programmer who has an interest in SQL can benefit from this site.

3. SQL Course from Stanford University

This is a free SQL course provided by Stanford University. This course contains good SQL video tutorials to explain both the basic and advanced concepts of SQL and Relational databases.

You can use this course in both registered and non-registered mode, though it’s better to get registered to save your progress. It’s also a self-paced course so you can learn at your own speed.

This website also provides all course material for free e.g. SQL scripts, course slides, etc which you can download from relevant sections. Given this course is from Stanford University, you can rest assured of quality.

4. SQL Course from Khan Academy

Khan Academy, one of the best websites to learn computer science and programming online also has a good SQL tutorial with the title “Intro to SQL: Querying and managing databases”.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use SQL to store, query, and manipulate data. SQL is a special-purpose programming language designed for managing data in a relational database and is used by a huge number of apps and organizations.

I have used some tutorials from Khan Academy in past and this is one of them, it’s like a virtual classroom. 

A good companion of SQLZoo makes your study complete. You can also take help from some good SQL books like Head First SQL if you are a beginner, the head first way is one of the best ways to learn SQL.

5. SQLBolt

SQLBolt is another good website to learn SQL with simple, interactive examples. It contains a series of interactive lessons and exercises designed to help you quickly learn SQL right in your browser.

It contains 20 lessons starting from a basic SQL query to more advanced and confusing Join queries, aggregation, filtering, and dealing with nulls. It is one of the best resources to learn SQL for complete beginners.

So if you are the one who wants to learn SQL or you know SQL but don’t feel comfortable then go and try out SQLBolt’s interactive SQL tutorials. SQLBolt also has SQL tasks after each lesson, which will force you to use the knowledge you have learned in the lesson.

The quality of queries is good, easy to start with, and getting difficult afterward. If you are stuck while writing an SQL query to solve the task, you can even take help from their solution.

I suggest you finish the task as soon as you finish the lessor and then the next day just do the task with some variation.

That’s all about some of the best resources to learn SQL online for FREE. Though the Internet is full of free stuff it’s hard to find a good resource. I still respect curated resources and have benefited a lot from them.  Though nothing can substitute classroom training, a combination of books, blogs, video tutorials, and interactive websites can really help you to get there.